Under the Influence of Insanity
by InfinityAndOne
Summary: On the anniversary of his brother's death, finally everything builds up and everything crashes down. And that sets Ethan off into a spiral he's not even sure he wants to get out of.


_Note: Leigh-Anne came into the ED and gave birth, but since learning of her connection with Scott, Ethan has placed as much distance between him and her as possible. She won't feature in this. The episode that aired yesterday is referenced here as if it happened on the 29th, even though that episode took place at a different time._

* * *

Ethan leans back on the door, his weight pushing it shut. It clicks in place and echoes around his empty flat, the only other sound being the incessant ticking of the clock in the living room. He barely hears it now, too busy at work, sleeping in the on-call room or his office, or at least, his old office. He's become accustomed to waking up with a stiff neck, having to crack his back to relieve the tightness. Yet he still promises himself that clock will never leave it's home, just above the television on the boring beige wall that you can still see a hint of pink beneath. It reminds him of time, time moving on, life continuing when it feels like it's stopped for him. It was a source of comfort in the weeks, even the months after Cal's death. He hopes to draw that same comfort now.

As he heavily trudges his way into the living room, flicking on the lights and certain his body is made from lead, he deposits his briefcase on the coffee table and pulls his tie roughly away from his neck. It almost feels suffocating, the physical representation of the silence deafening him. He undoes his top shirt button next, freeing his throat from the constricting fabric. He pulls his shirt free of his trousers as he walks to the kitchen, looking around aimlessly. He rubs the back of his next with a dry hand, the constant washing of them in the emergency department finally taking its toll. Restlessness creeps up on him, and he resists the urge to pace, Cal's voice complaining about it emerging from his subconscious. It's louder today, almost as loud as it was a year ago. Ethan's arms develop goosebumps.

The urge to do something too much to ignore now, and knowing he can't just sit on the sofa with a good book and a cup of tea, he walks with purpose to the fridge and pulls from it a six-pack of beer he picked up a week ago. Well, five-pack now but that was of no consequence. He wasn't his brother and he didn't have any friends to finish them off with. It would last another month.

He pulls one from the plastic, feeling the chill beneath his hand. He makes a note to himself to turn the heating on, only now realising that it was rather cold. Shutting the fridge door harder than necessary and hearing its contents rattle within, he walks back to the living room and collapses back with a thump on the right side of the sofa.

As children, he and Caleb had their own side of the sofa. Ethan always took the right, much like his father, and Cal would take the left just as Matilda did. When they met Emilie she remarked on their seating positions too, saying they never changed. And to this day, Ethan will only ever take the right side, leaving the left for his brother.

He grabs the remote from the floor and switches Netflix on, finding _Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl_ and pressing play, watching it buffer as he cracks open his can and takes a sip. He doesn't care what Cal says, the first movie will always be the best of the movies that proceed it.

They'd planned to see the most recent release in the cinema together, a short respite from their hectic work lives and complicated love lives, but Cal didn't make it that far and Ethan's not going to watch it without his brother. It was their own little private tradition together, and without Cal, there is no together. Today was different though, and today he can almost imagine he's watching it with his brother, listening to him noisily crunching popcorn, hopelessly scattering crumbs over the floor.

He tries to relax back into the sofa as the film starts to play, feeling knots in his tense shoulders that haven't seemed to disappear since he started being acting clinical lead (and strangely, he was 'acting' in more ways than one).

He takes a gulp of the beer (ignoring the way the coolness freezes his insides) and tries to drag his mind away from the disaster that was his short reign as head of the ED. But that only causes more problems as his mind switches to Robyn, mind completely unfocused on the film playing in front of him.

He wasn't wrong earlier, he knows it stops feeling raw after a while. It stops feeling like an open wound that someone has poured lemon juice in and it starts healing, scabbing up and turning a light pink, eventually just becoming another scar to add to the many on his heart of losing people. Yet today is different. Someone's taken a scalpel, a shaky hand holding it, and carelessly slices right through the scar, opening it up. Then the lemon juice comes back and it feels just as raw as when he walked in on his brother lying dead in resus.

He supposes as he takes another long gulp (it's not as cold anymore, his body feels warmer), he should be used to the feeling by now. He's been through many first anniversaries, a few seconds and thirds too. Logically he knows they get easier. Logically he knows time keeps moving, the clock keeps ticking and it will always get better. But right now, that can't stop the shaky F1s hand splitting open his heart and the grief pouring lemon juice directly onto the wound.

Despite the silence being drowned out by the score of the movie, Ethan's thoughts seem to deafen him to everything around him. He drinks more of his beer, hoping he'll get that blissful relief of forgetting soon from the alcohol because for now, he doesn't fancy his lack of self-control making him think about the last few months.

He tries to distract himself from the bad bits by thinking about what Cal's reaction would be to him jumping into a bin earlier, but even that is clouded with the reason why he did it. An error of judgement on a grieving Robyn. Then his mind switches to Bea. He really messed up there, and even redeeming himself at the end didn't remove the guilt. He'd almost caused her to quit, let himself be clouded by the prominent date to not realise that Bea was young and naïve and needed guiding not shouting.

Despite finally managing to convince her to stay and Charlie's protests against it, he knows he made the right decision to stand down as acting clinical lead. He's tired, tired of all the stress added, tired of management breathing down his neck, tired of trying to impress everyone and then impressing no-one, tired of everything. Cal definitely got one thing right, Ethan is no leader.

But it's okay because now he can focus on what he's good at, now he can focus on the reason why he went into medicine in the first place, now he can help people. Be a colleague and not a threat to Bea, be a friend and not a monster to Robyn, be Ethan and not clinical lead.

He focuses on the clock and not the television as he finishes the can, comforted by the passage of time and not a movie that reminds him of his brother. He places the empty can on the coffee table in front of him, disappointed not had the escape he so desperately craves.

He turns the television off and makes his way to the fridge.

One more shouldn't hurt.

* * *

 _A/N Okay so I've been wanting to start this multichapter for a couple of months but I've been kind of busy and stressed, however, with today being the anniversary of Cal's death I changed the plot of the story around a little so it coincides with it because apparently, I like to torture myself. I will warn you, update rates will not be regular. I have exams in two weeks and as a result, free time is limited. So hey, if this gets updated in the next two weeks, I've probably been replaced by an alien. Yeah in all seriousness though I'm going to focus on them before this for obvious reasons, but once they're over I'll be almost-stress-free and so back into writing (because honestly since around December, Stuff has been very hectic but hopefully I'll be able to become more active on here afterwards; I miss this)._


End file.
